Unexpected field value in snapshot file

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This article is a part of the Troubleshooting collection.

Problem

amdump(8) fails with e.g.,

planner: disk HOSTNAME:/path, estimate of level NNN failed: -1.

and an examination of the relevant sendsize log reveals

tar: Unexpected field value in snapshot file

yet the estimate of the level 0 succeeded.

Solution

There are two possible causes for this problem.

If you are using a version of Amanda prior to 2.5.0p2 with GNU tar 1.15.91 or later, then this is due to a format change in tar that is not recognized by Amanda. Either upgrade Amanda to a newer version, or downgrade tar.

This error may also be caused by corrupt tar incremental snapshot files; in this case, removing the suspect file (without the .new suffix) will correct the error.

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